Basic Facts

• A total of 40 questions to be answered in 35 minutes.
• Questions in the Reading section contain four answer choices.
• To score a 21 on the test you need to get 20 questions correct - 50% of the questions.

Breakdown of the Reading section

There are four different topics for your passages. They are always in the same order Prose Fiction, Social Studies, Humanities, and Natural Sciences. Each passage will have 10 questions. You can work the passages in any order, so start with your strongest passage type and work from there.

Concepts being tested:

• Key Ideas and Details (55 - 60%): Read texts closely to determine central ideas and themes. Summarize information and ideas accurately. Read closely to understand relationships and draw logical inferences and conclusions including understanding sequential, comparative, and cause-effect relationships.
• Craft and Structure (25 - 30%): Determine word and phrase meanings, analyze and author's word choice rhetorically, analyze text structure, understand authorial purpose and perspective, and analyze characters' point of view. You will interpret authorial decisions rhetorically and differentiate between various perspectives and sources of information.
• Integration of Knowledge and Ideas (13 - 18%): Understand authors' claims, differentiate between facts and opinions, and use evidence to make connections between different texts that are related by topic. Some questions will require you to analyze how authors construct arguments, evaluating reasoning and evidence for various sources.

Question Types:

• Explicit Idea: Asks about information mentioned in the passage and invariably has explicit reference to line numbers.
• Implied Idea: Asks you to understand something that is not explicitly mentioned in the passage. Includes writer's view etc.
• Extension: Refers to Main Idea, Vocab-in-Context and Function questions.
• Main Idea questions—Asks about the central theme
• Vocab-in-Context questions—Asks about a meaning of a word as used in the passage
• Function questions—Asks about the purpose of a specific part of the passage

Test Directions

Do not waste any time reading the directions at the beginning of the test. The directions are always the same as follows:

DIRECTIONS: There are several passages in this test. Each passage is accompanied by several questions. After reading a passage, choose the best answer to each question and fill in the corresponding oval on your answer document. You may refer to the passages as often as necessary.

Basic Strategy

1. There are no negative points for incorrect or blank answers, so answer every question on the test.
2. Read the passage and write short notes next to each paragraph.
• Focus on the topic and purpose of the passage.
• Keep track of different people and opinions.
3. Read the question and identify helpful hints.
• Line references and keywords can help you find the answers.
4. Predict an answer BEFORE you look at the answer choices.
5. Solve all your questions for a given passage in the test booklet, then bubble all of them in at once.

---

Reading the questions first will allow you to focus on the relevant parts of the passage. You don't need to know every detail in the passage but rather the information that will help you answer questions. Keep in mind that the passage is at your level, and it will give you all the information that you need to know. Even if you just skim the passage, read the entire passage. The passage will always give you all the information required to answer every question.

Learn to eliminate the wrong answers. That means while Neil Armstrong's biography has little to do with the passage on space travel you may find a question that addresses that very thing.

Keep in mind that the wrong answers on the ACT are 100% wrong. There are no answers that might be right on the ACT. The right answer will be 100% right, and it shouldn't leave you with doubt.

Reading Comprehension - Answer traps

1. Reversed relationship — twists details from the passage so they are no longer correct.
2. Too specific or too broad — a true statement from the passage, but one that doesn't answer the question.
3. Unrelated information — includes information not included in the passage.
4. Debatable words — too extreme to reflect the author's purpose (often includes words like always, never, best, worst, etc.)
5. Contradictory — contradicts the information in the passage.

Identifying wrong answer choices

Instead of trying to find which answers could be right, look for the reason an answer can be wrong. A single word can make an answer wrong.

There are a few classic wrong answer choices the ACT loves to use. Here's an example question.

Let's imagine you just read a passage talking about how

human evolution shaped the environment. It gives a few examples. First, it talks about how the transition from earlier species like Homo habilus to neanderthals led to more tool usage like fire, which caused wildfires and shaped the ecology. It then talks about Homo sapiens 40,000 years ago and their overhunting of species like woolly mammoths to extinction.

Question: “Which of the following best describes the main subject of the passage?”

(A).	The transition between Homo habilus and neanderthals
(B).	The study of evolution
(C).	How the environment shaped human evolution
(D).	The plausibility of evolution
(E).	The influence of human development on ecology

What do you think is the correct answer?                

What are the other choices 100% wrong?

(A).
(B).
(C).
(D).
(E).

---

Choice (A) - Wrong answer - Too Specific

This type of wrong answer focuses on a narrow pieces of information in the passage. To help, you can ask yourself can this answer choice really describe the passage? Or does it work better as the title of the passage? You'll find that it's just way too specific to convey the point of the overall passage.

Choice (B) - Wrong answer - Too Broad

This type of wrong answer has the opposite problem—it's way too broad. Yes, theoretically the passage concerns the study of evolution, but only one aspect of it, and especially as it relates to the impact on the environment.

Choice (C) - Wrong answer - Reversed Relationship

This wrong answer choice can be tricky because it mentions all the right words. But of course the relationship between those words needs to be correct as well. Here, the relationship is flipped. Students who read too quickly make careless mistakes like these!

Choice (D) - Wrong answer - Unrelated Concept

Finally, this kind of wrong answer preys on the tendency of students to over think the question. This might be a trigger answer and, of course, this concept will appear nowhere in the passage, but some students just won't be able to resist.

On the surface, each of the answer choices sound possibly correct.

But plausible isn't good enough. The right answer needs to be 100%, totally right. Wrong answers might be off by even one word—you need to eliminate these.

Success Strategy Roundup

Don't rely only on your ability to memorize the passage or memory !

If specific lines are referenced in the question, reread those lines. Don't trust your ability to remember every little details.

Stay Specific !

Every right answer will have support in the passage. Never make an assumption based on context. Look for the evidence for each answer you think is right.

Suggested strategies for high scoring ACT takers

Passage Method 1: Skim the Passage, then Read the questions

• Skim the passage on the first read through. Don't try to understand every single line, or write notes predicting what the questions will be. Just get a general understanding of the passage. You want to try to finish reading the passage in 3 minutes, if possible.
• Next, go to the questions. If the question refers to a line number, then go back to that line number and understand the text around it.
• If you can't answer a question within 30 seconds, skip it.

Pitfalls: You must be able to skim effectively. This means being able to quickly digest a text without having to slowly read every word. If you're not quite good at this yet, practice it on newspaper articles and your homework reading.

---

Passage Method 2: Read the Questions First and Mark the Passage

Here's how it goes:

• Before you read the passage, go to the questions and read each one.
• If the question refers to a series of lines, mark those lines on the passage. Make a brief note about the gist of the question.
• Now, start to skim through the entire passage. When you reach one of your notes, slow down and take more notice of the question.
• Answer the questions.

Pitfalls: You need to have more experience with the ACT Reading section so that you can recollect the question when you hit sections of the passage that will help you answer inference questions. If you're not sure of this, you can easily be led down the wrong track and focus on the wrong aspects of the passage.

---

Passage Method 3: Read the Passage in detail, then answer questions

• Read the passage in detail, line by line.
• Take notes on the margin about the main point of each paragraph.
• Answer the questions.

Pitfalls: By reading the passage closely, you absorb a lot of details that aren't useful for answering questions. The notes you take aren't directed towards helping you answer the questions. By interpreting the passage ahead of time, you risk being led astray.